In 2024 the world installed more than 1.3 million public charging points—over 30 % more than 2023 (iea.blob.core.windows.net).
Yet a four-year review of 20 000 US chargers found real uptime stuck at just 73.7 % (vs 84.6 % self-reported) (theverge.com).
Hardware alone is no longer the hard part; keeping chargers online is. That hinges on secure, resilient connectivity.
From a hardware race to a reliability race
Even the best 350 kW unit is useless if a driver finds it offline. Regulators know this: the US National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) rule now demands ≥ 97 % average annual uptime for every funded port (federalregister.gov)
Connectivity makes that possible by enabling:
- Instant fault detection & remote resets that slash truck-rolls.
- Friction-free customer journeys: real-time authorisation, live pricing, “plug & charge” convenience.
- Actionable data for dynamic pricing, site planning and grid-service revenue.
Cellular IoT & 5G -The new backbone
Copper and site Wi-Fi struggle with coverage gaps and vandalism. That’s why analysts see the EV-charger cellular-connectivity market rising from ≈ US $2 bn (2024) to US $4.1 bn by 2030 (13.3 % CAGR) (researchandmarkets.com).
- LTE-M / NB-IoT: low power, ~50-100 ms round-trip—ideal for urban AC posts.
- 5G NR (incl. forthcoming RedCap): <10 ms latency and high bandwidth for HPC sites, large firmware bundles and V2G dispatch.
- Multi-network eSIM/iSIM: automatic carrier fallback drives outage risk below 2 %, beating most fibre SLAs.
Security & interoperability- closing the gaps
Before you scale, fix three common pain points:
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Protocol mismatches – Mixing legacy OCPP 1.6 with 2.0.1 back-ends leads to silent faults. Certify new sites on OCPP 2.0.1 and use schema validation for older fleets.
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Payment-data exposure – Private APNs plus end-to-end keep you inside PCI-DSS boundaries. CharIN’s PKI guidance details certificate rotation best practice (charin.global)
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Latency-sensitive grid services – < 20 ms round-trip is a must for V2G and demand-response. 5G achieves this where LTE cannot.
DOE’s 2025 Vehicle-to-Grid Integration report flags secure, near-real-time comms as a prerequisite for revenue-stacking grid services (energy.gov).
Smart energy & V2G, monetising the connection
Once your chargers “speak” reliably, new revenue opens up:
- Dynamic load management: sub-second throttling avoids demand charges on multi-MW sites.
- Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G): bidirectional chargers let fleets sell frequency response and resilience.
- Utilisation uplift: networks that feed real-time data into pricing algorithms report ~10 % higher charger use in early pilots (chargelab.co).
CTO checklist: choosing a future-proof connectivity partner
A quick primer for RFPs:
- Multi-network coverage with < 2 % outage SLA in every target market.
- Private networking (VPN/APN) for PCI-DSS-level security.
- API-first CMP offering live diagnostics, webhooks and bulk actions.
- Commercial clarity: pooled data plans and a roadmap to 5G RedCap.
- Data-residency compliance for GDPR, CCPA and local rules.
Need a benchmark? Check how IXT SecureNet bundles private VPN tunnels with SIM management.
Connectivity is a board-level issue
Best-in-class connectivity turns chargers from stranded boxes into high-margin digital assets. Operators that treat the network as strategic infrastructure, not a cost line, are already outpacing rivals on uptime, customer satisfaction and grid-service revenue.
